


external connection

by eyemoji



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, and it's PLAYABLE, another wild scifi romp from Me, it's a lifeline au even less than unstable ground is a stellar firma au, it's not really a lifeline au because i will be making a lot up, kind of, lifeline game, lottie if you see this it's a lifeline au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-09-07 22:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20316898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji
Summary: “Help. Help. Is anyone listening? Martin Blackwood… Help, please.”The line crackles.“Help,” he says again, voice cracking. “Commander? Michael? Anyone else? It’s Martin. I need help. Can you read me?”[THIS FIC IS PLAYABLE.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is playable! It functions in real-time, so you, the audience, get to decide where the story goes! Whether you style yourself as Jon, or just as an unseen hand behind the scenes, you help Jon make a choice from the options he's presented with at the end of each chapter. Leave your thoughts/choice(s) in the comments, and the next chapter will be written based off of the majority choice. TMA is a relatively small fandom, so it's likely your comment will have a decent amount of weight!
> 
> And of course, if you don't want to play and would rather read along, that's an option too :)

Welcome.

For the purpose of this endeavour, your name is Jonathan Sims.

You are twenty-nine years old.

You are about to receive a message on your cellular communications device.

Respond to the message within regulations.

His safety is in your hands.

Some portions of this experience may seem familiar. This is to be expected. Do  **not** assume that a choice will lead to an expected outcome simply because you feel it has worked before.    
Nothing “has worked before.” This one is new.

Your message is incoming, Jonathan Sims.

Open it.

* * *

Martin Blackwood is  _ fucked _ . He’s gone, absolutely unsalvageable, an idiot of some secret supreme order he isn’t even aware he’s been inducted into yet. 

He’s homesick. This was to be expected, maybe, but it’s the fact that his mother hasn’t been acknowledging his messages, each one sent during those precious fifteen minutes of comms time he’s afforded a week (“Rationing,” the commander had said by way of explanation, and then had refused to elaborate) that’s really been driving the nail deeper. Why on earth he ever thought it would be a good idea to sell away his last remaining shreds of privacy and use a fake CV to secure himself a position on a research vessel headed lightyears away from the closest rocky planet, he’s not sure, especially not  _ now, _ when his bed is hard, and the restraining straps tight against his skin, and the room so terribly, terribly  _ cold _ .

Also, his head hurts. He thinks this is unrelated to the idiocy, but then again, with the depths of outer space, he never really can be sure, can he?

He’s got a room to himself; it would be the only perk of the dismal mission he’s found himself booked onto, if he wasn’t the  _ only _ person besides the commander who’s got a room to himself. The others don’t  _ resent _ him for it, he tells himself; they’re friendly enough, and he gets the occasional nod in the corridors when he passes any of them, but they keep their distance from him in a way he didn’t think was how it all worked, if the numerous sci-fi found family series’ he consumed ravenously as a rumpled little seven year old were anything to go by.

Still. It’s fine.

It’s  _ fine, _ he insists, that he feels entirely, utterly alone. At least he’s still got  _ people _ . Still has words to exchange, which is more than he had at home with his mother, and tasks to carry out, and, yeah, an elaborate ruse to put on, to make sure they don’t find him out and send him packing on the next cargo ship heading home that comes their way-- or, if they determine he’s not worth the effort, simply flush him out the nearest airlock. Space is a no-man’s land, he’s pretty sure. A lawless expanse. And his mother needs the money.

It’s these kinds of thoughts that keep him up at night, and this one is no different. He can’t even toss and turn to take his mind off of things; he’s strapped in securely, and loosening the cords is sure to only give him nausea. The uniform grey of the walls and bed and wallfixings is uninspiring, and he’s grown too used to the background humming of the ship for it to be any real distraction. The faint glow of the emergency kit near the door is a disappointing green, entirely out of line of what Martin had imagined emergency space equipment would look like, and that, too, irritates him far too much for him to fall asleep.

Which, you know, is still fine. He’ll get up like usual in the morning, pretend that he’s slept, and totter off to figure out the mechanics of whatever skill he’s supposed to have mastered in the first year of uni he never went to in order to carry out that day’s tasks.

God, he hopes he won’t get renewed. He’ll find another job, be some assistant in some dusty Institute somewhere and spend his days confined to a dim basement-- anything would be fine, really, as long as it isn’t more of this.

He sighs and stares up at the ceiling. More grey, the occasional thin line demarcating the edge of some paneling, the occasional rivet--

There’s a knock at the door.

Martin stares at it for a second, considering. Who would be coming down to his room, and in the middle of the “night,” no less? Surely if it was an emergency, there’d have been an alarm, or at least an announcement? Images of horrifying, looming aliens with foaming mouths and too many limbs to count pop into his head as he slowly begins the process of unhooking himself from his bed.

He’s very careful not to let the metal bits clink.

The knocking at the door intensifies. His fingers are shaking a bit too hard for him to remove himself properly, and one of the straps slips down and around his arm, yanking him back against the wall as he pushes forward. 

A hiss of pain escapes him before he can stop it, and before he has a chance to clap his other hand to his mouth, the knocking stops.

Martin waits, half-tied to his bed, floating with bated breath as he waits for whatever is on the other side of the door to do… whatever it is it’s about to do. He squeezes his eyes shut.

The door beeps, the universal sound for  _ I’m about to open, _ and the hydraulics depressurize.

_ I’m sorry, Mum, _ he thinks.  _ I did try, though. _

There’s a horrifying second of silence, and then--

“Martin?”

He opens one eye. 

It’s Michael Shelley, one of the other crew members. The one Martin would say he liked, if he had to pick. He’s tall, at least compared to him, and has the sort of face that makes you want to trust him immediately, the sort of face that says he’ll keep your secrets. Not that Martin has, of course, but if he’d had to confide in anyone onboard, he’d have been his pick.

None of this explains what he’s doing at his door at-- he glances at the hall display-- 0300 hours. 

On second look, Michael isn’t wearing the traditional red sleep uniform that Martin’s been avoiding using himself. He’s still in uniform, and his mouth is set into something stern, and Martin’s insides turn to ice as he realizes  _ this is it. I’ve been found out, and the commander’s sent Michael to get me to be airlocked. _

He curls his sweaty palms into loose fists, and swallows a dry mouthful before taking a deep breath to begin his defense-- but Michael doesn’t seem especially interested in dragging him off anywhere, as his gaze moves over to where Martin’s still half-bound to the bed. The corner of his lips quirk up into the flicker of a smile.

“Need a hand?”

Martin looks at him, and then at his entangled arm, and then back at him.

“I’d appreciate it, yeah.”

He moves in and around to his right, and in a matter of seconds has deftly disengaged his arm.

“Thanks,” he says, rubbing where the straps had cut in. “Uh, why--?”

Michael smiles. 

“Grab a spacesuit,” he says, before turning around and gesturing for him to follow him down the hall.

He pushes off of his bedframe to catch up with him.

“Er- what?”

“Spacesuit, Blackwood. Here, the commander usually keeps a couple stashed in Storeroom 202B over here for emergencies”

He floats off to the right. Martin follows, still not comprehending.

“Is… there an emergency? I didn’t hear any alarms…”

“I guess you could call it that, sure.”

“Michael…”

“Just trust me, Martin. You won’t want to miss this.”

* * *

“Okay, you were right,” he admits. “This is… wow. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

They’re both floating outside the ship, loosely tethered with the longest cords Michael had been able to find.

He gives him a strange look, now.

“Except, of course, when you visited the three moons of Pandua during the trip where you proved the impossibility of survival of alien species on rocky moon-exoworlds.”

_ Shoot. _ He’d been so busy enjoying the view that he’d forgotten Martin Blackwood, MD PhD and two-time Nobel Prize winner had, you know, actually  _ done _ impossible things.

“I- right, yeah. Except for then.” He swallows. “I was… trying to be nice?”

To his relief, Michael seems to buy it. He laughs.

“You know, Blackwood, you’re not what we thought you’d be at all.” At his expression, he hastily adds, “In a good way! The others were all convinced you’d be this stuffy old professor, and, well, let me just say-- I’m a  _ huge _ fan of your work, but… I didn’t exactly disagree with them, you know?”

Martin nods along and hopes he’s making a convincing impression of a nonstuffy old professor.

“I guess that’s why it took this long for one of us to initiate you.”

“Initiate me?”

“Yeah, you know. New crew member comes aboard, one of us takes them out for a little after-hours spacewalk. Totally non-regulation, of course, but the commander doesn’t mind.”

“Oh! So-- this, this is--”

“Yep!” Michael smiles again, and for once, Martin doesn’t feel like  _ he’s _ the butt of the joke. “Welcome aboard, Martin Blackwood. Sorry for being a month late.”

“It- It’s fine,” he says, then sneaks a glance over at him. He seems like he’s waiting for something else, so he adds, “It’s lovely. Really, it is.”

Michael’s face is triumphant.

“What?”

“I  _ told _ them you’d appreciate it. Fiona didn’t believe me, but, well-- Let’s not get into that right now, anyways. This is supposed to be nice.

“This  _ is _ nice,” Martin says, because it’s true, and because he’s twenty-eight and has never been off-world before, never mind spacewalking among three moons, and there might only be one big moon shining brilliantly below them right now, but it’s everything he never even knew he wanted.

He exhales, slowly.

“It’s  _ beautiful _ .”

“Yeah,” says Michael, and his voice sounds a little bit soft.

They stay like that in silence for a while, and it’s lovely and peaceful and-- strangely  _ intimate-- _ before Michael breaks the silence again.

“Hey, Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it just me or-- does the moon look… bigger?”

“What?”

“I- Never mind, ignore me. Forget I said anything. It’s just--” Michael hesitates.

“Go on,” Martin encourages. “I won’t laugh.”

Michael’s gaze flickers over him for a second, before he swallows, nods, and continues.

“I-- It just… looks bigger? Closer? We’re not scheduled to even send down a probe for a few days yet, so…?”

“Maybe they decided to push up the launch?” 

“Ha! Are you kidding me? With  _ our _ commander? She’s lovely, but… she runs the tightest ship you’ll ever have the privilege of setting foot in.” Michael turns towards him. “Don’t let her catch you without those regulation sleeping jumpers, either.”

“Ha.”

“I’m serious!” The moon seemingly forgotten for the time being, Michael launches into an account of Commander Robinson’s stringent no-nonsense policies coming to bite a couple of particularly goofy communications officers in the butt, and Martin laughs in all the right places and says all the right things, and, all in all, it’s a much nicer night than the way he’d thought it’d have gone.

It’s just when Michael points out their oxygen gauges are running low, and that they had better make their way back inside that it all goes to hell.

They made it inside the airlock; that much Martin remembers, and he thinks he’d held Michael’s hand, for the briefest of moments, and Michael hadn’t said he’d minded, and that Michael had turned him around and begun to help work him out of his space suit, fingers lingering at the catch near his neck-- but he can’t pinpoint the exact moment when the entire ship lurched, throwing them both against opposite walls.

He doesn’t remember when the alarms started going off, or how he’d dragged himself “up” by hanging on to one of the extra spacesuits, head still vaguely foggy with disorientation and disbelief. 

He doesn’t remember exactly how much the crash hurt.

A lot, he suspects.

His vision is hazy, in the now, and his mouth tastes vaguely like smoke, though he can’t make out any visible fires. He tries calling out to Michael, but either his ears aren’t working, or his mouth isn’t. His hand stretches out to try and make contact that way, but-- nothing.

Someone groans in pain. He’s pretty sure it’s him.

And then-- the  _ real _ crash, the big one.

He remembers how much  _ this _ one hurt, alright.

There’s a bright spot of white behind his eyes--  _ when did he close them?-- _ and then a brilliant burst of color that doesn’t make any sort of sense-- and then black.

* * *

Something is beeping. It is beeping very annoyingly, and very incessantly. Did his mum get a new alarm clock? He reaches out, tries to whack it enough so it’ll shut up and let him go back to sleep.

The whacking doesn’t work.

He makes a disgruntled sound, reaches out to his side for his glasses, and slowly realizes two things:

1) His glasses are on his face.

2) When he tries to confirm this, his hand slaps against something smooth and rounded. There’s something in front of his face, something like a-- helmet?

Which brings him to 

3) Moving hurts. And he’s definitely not in bed, not at home.

He blinks. It hurts. He tries to roll forward. Unsuccessful, and also:  _ ow. _

He drops his head forward (ow) and is unprepared for the helmet to hit the ground first (also ow.)

And then something crackles to life. It’s just static, and it takes him a second to realize what that might mean, but once he does, his heart leaps a little bit back into his chest. It takes a couple of tries to get words working, and his mouth is gritty and dry with debris-- his helmet must have not been on throughout the entire thing-- but he eventually manages to get out a few precious words.

“Help. Help. Is anyone listening? Martin Blackwood… Help, please.”

The line crackles. 

“Help,” he says again, voice cracking. “Commander? Michael? Anyone else? It’s Martin. I need help. Can you read me?”

Nothing but static.

“Please,” he tries, and then presses his head further into crumpled flooring.

“ _ Please. _ ”

The line crackles again, and then goes completely dead. He slumps further into his suit.

It’s fine, he tries to tell himself, that he’s entirely, utterly alone. It’s  _ fine _ .

He doesn’t know how long he sits like that until the voice arrives.

It’s mechanical, toneless, like some sort of text-to-speech program-- but it’s there.

“I can read you,” it says. “Is somebody out there?”

\--

* * *

It’s Martin. I need help. Can you read me?  
Please.  
_Please._  
I can read you. Is somebody out there?

* * *

Good work, Jonathan. You have certain options from this position. You may continue to assist Martin Blackwood directly, or you may choose to take on an extra case and delegate the responsibilities to any of your direct assistants. 

At the moment, it seems that your best course of option is to focus on this one case, as it is your first task in this particular department. However, if at any moment you wish to delegate, you merely have to send the message ‘DELEGATE,’ followed by the name of the assistant you wish to delegate to, if you have a particular assistant in mind. If you do not specify an assistant, the choice will be made depending on the individual workloads and responsibilities of the assistants.

**Your current assistants are:** Sasha James, Timothy Stoker

The next thing you must decide is how to proceed with Mr Blackwood. At the moment, he is not aware of the details of your situation. Per protocol, you are permitted to give him a sanitized overview of your person and position, if you so wish. Else, you may want to focus all your efforts on keeping him alive, keeping the introductions for later.

The choice is yours; however, do remember that Mr Blackwood is waiting. His life is very much in your hands.

Time is of the essence, Jonathan.


	2. Chapter 2

**Task Item:** Keep Martin Blackwood alive. Skip introductions.

* * *

It’s Martin. I need help. Can you read me?  
Please.  
_Please._  
I can read you. Is somebody out there?  
Yes! Mayday, mayday. Pan-pan! Uh, whatever other codes you might need.

* * *

Martin tries to pull himself to a seated position, groaning with the effort. His head is spinning. His stomach is roiling. His heart is hovering somewhere between hope that he’s about to be rescued and nervousness that whoever’s on the other end has better things to do than talk to a probably soon-dead astronaut. 

A tear makes it way out and rolls down his face; he itches to wipe it away but forces himself to resist the temptation to remove his helmet.

The monotonous, almost  _ bored _ voice comes again:

“What’s wrong?”

Martin chokes out a half-laugh. What  _ isn’t? _

The voice does not seem to consider this sufficient information.

“Describe your situation.”

“Um. Well. I’m Martin Blackwood. I-- We crashed. Somewhere; I don’t know where, but I think it’s the moon? Not Earth’s moon. The moon we were studying. I-- The spaceship  _ Varia _ . That’s what I was on, a deep space mission investigating, um, well I’m not exactly sure what everyone else was there for, but I was doing stuff with, uh… dust.”

A pregnant pause.

“Go on, then.”

Martin scowls, and then is immediately thankful the Voice can’t see him. Of all the times to be worried about blowing his cover!

“Right, so, uh. We crashed. I don’t know much more than that. I was with a fellow crew member, uh, Michael Shelley, when things really started to go crazy, but I don’t know where he is now. Or if he’s even alive. God, what if he’s dead? What if they’re all dead?”

“Calm down.”

“Easy for you to say!”

“No. Focus. You’re in shock. Are you injured?”

“I ache all over, and it hurts to move. ...But I  _ can _ move, and I’m alive, so… that’s good?”

“Where are you?”

“I told you, some moon. Sorry if its scientific name isn’t exactly my  _ top priority _ at the moment.”

“No. Well, yes, but  _ where _ are you? What’s your status? I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Shipwreck. Crash site? I don’t know where exactly. My vision’s still kind of foggy, and… the rooms are harder to identify when they’re… in pieces. Um, status wise-- I’m alive, and my suit’s still working-- I’m breathing. My helmet is, um, cracked, a little? That might be a problem. And, again, I can’t see or hear anyone else.”

“Can you stand?”

“Um, give me a moment.”

Martin shifts forward, and hisses. 

“Are you alright?”

Martin ignores the voice in favor of gasping as he brings his knees in and braces himself against a nearby chunk of metal. It’s about half as tall as he is, and, straining, he’s able to slowly work himself up to a full sit. His legs tremble, threatening to give out, and he has to grip the edge of the chunk as tightly as he can with his still-gloved hands. 

Stability. It’s been underrated, he thinks, exhaling sharply into his helmet.

A vague heat starts to build at the base of one of his palms. He frowns, then brings the hand to his face for inspection. 

Thirteen seconds later, he’s found the problem:

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine, but- there’s a small hole in one of my gloves. On a scale of one to ‘you’re already dead,’ how much of bad news is that?”

A second of silence, and Martin thinks the Voice has deserted him, but then it kicks back in to ask, 

“What is the name of the moon you’re on?”

“Um-- hold on, let me check the log--” he taps the side of his helmet with his holey glove, waiting for the ship log screen to turn on. Except, of course, that it doesn’t, and he sighs again in frustration.

“Small problem. Helmet computer isn’t working.”

“Not surprised.  _ Varia, _ you said?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Okay. Give me a second to look up where you were heading. In the meantime, you should focus on getting out of wherever you are and looking for anything salvageable. Don’t leave the ship, don’t wander too far.”

“I’m not a child,” Martin mutters under his breath, but gives the Voice a “yeah, okay,” anyways. He’d rather continue to have a disembodied voice guide help keep him alive than be all alone wandering a shipwreck on a moon light-years away from Earth. 

There’s a crackle, and the line goes silent. Martin assumes this means that the Voice has switched channels, and hopes that they haven’t just decided to give up on him. He figures that, either way, they  _ are _ right: he ought to be looking for anything and everything that could help him, or any of the others, if they’re still alive, and, with a groan, pushes himself off of the chunk of metal. The one of his gloves that has a hole catches on the now-crimped edge and tears a little farther. He curses.

He hopes the Voice gets back to him soon.

Wincing with every step, he picks his way across the minefield of sharp and smoking metal, each jagged piece of which threatens to puncture his suit, and probably his leg with it. The journey, which probably isn’t more than five hundred feet, seems to take an eternity, and he almost cries in blessed relief when his helmet crackles on again and the Voice is back in his ear, calling his name over and over in a tone that’s more annoyed than frantic.

“Martin. Martin. Martin--”

“Yeah, yeah I’m here.”

“Good. What did you find?”

“Um, actually, nothing. I haven’t actually left the room yet-- and before you say anything, it’s because moving is harder than it sounds.”

“You’re in luck, then. I might be able to help with that. 50U64UU, the moon you’ve found yourself on, has a vague atmospheric composition similar to that of Earth’s. You might feel a little light-headed, but otherwise you’re fine to remove your helmet. Same for your suit, but you might want to keep that on for safety’s sake. Your choice.”

“It does feel safer.”

“Alright. Helmet can still come off.”

“You got it.”

Even with the Voice’s reassurance, he hesitates before unlatching his helmet and taking it off. A few strands of hair, slick with sweat and possibly tears stick to his forehead and scratch against his eyelids, and he ends up pushing it back with his now useless right-hand glove. 

“Okay. Helmet off. It  _ is _ nice to be able to breathe. There’s… I don’t want to call it a breeze, but the surface seems to be cooler than the inside of my helmet, so there’s that.”

No response. It takes a second for Martin to realize, but when he does, he swears again and picks up the helmet, holding it to his ear.

“...Martin? Martin, are you alright?”

“Sorry! I forgot the comm was  _ in _ the helmet.”

The Voice doesn’t seem impressed.

“A low priority, I see.”

“Oh, come on. I just… didn’t think.”

“Evidently.”

“Hey. You were the one who told me to take the helmet off in the first--”

The Voice cuts him off.

“As much as I’d love to argue exactly whose fault this little oversight was, I’d personally prefer to get you off this moon and have a good night’s sleep before we move on to that. Can you dig the transmitter out?”

“Probably not. It’s stuck pretty good in there, and I might need the helmet later?”

“Fair enough. I don’t suppose you’ve got another helmet lying around.”

“No.”

Martin scans the room. He was right; there isn’t another intact helmet lying discarded anywhere, and anything that looks like it could be a  _ piece _ of one is far too destroyed for him to even consider using. He recalls a brief lecture a while ago they’d all received from Fiona on how the IEVA suits all ought to have their own built-in comms; he wishes she’d had the chance to send in her scathing review-slash-proposal before they’d crashlanded on-- what had the Voice said? 50U64UU. (Really rolls off the tongue, that.)

With nowhere else to look, his eyes fall on the door in front of him. Specifically, the little display on the wall above where the entry keypad is. 

Right! The wall communicator! The screens specifically there to promote silent ship-wide communication in the wee hours ever since the one time when everyone was asleep but Eric just  _ had _ to be awake and accidentally turned on ship-wide comms instead of virtual chess. They’d been jerry-rigged to add speech-to-text ever since. Martin smiles faintly at the memory, but the smile disappears near-instantaneously once the idea that there might not  _ be _ an Eric anymore to make that mistake pops into his mind.

“Hold on,” he says into the helmet. “I think I have an idea.”

With a little strategic angling, and his holey glove once again back on his hand, he’s able to wind up enough of a punch to break through the thin plastic Fiona had used to rig up the text-based communicators. After that, it’s just a matter of pulling the small screen off and connecting it to the comms conversation like a three-way call.

“Okay,” he says, in the direction of the screen. “Can you hear me?”

_ Yes, _ comes the response.  _ Or, well, I’m receiving your communications. I can no longer hear your voice. _

“Sorry,” Martin says. “Maybe someday when I get off this rock I can buy you a drink, and you can hear it for real, yeah?”

The Voice doesn’t respond for a while. When it does, its response is more direct:

_ Time to find some resources, then. At the very least, you’ll need water. And food. _

“Yeah, yeah,” Martin mutters, and focuses his attention on the last couple of feet before he reaches the door. With the helmet off, he can smell the smoke filtering off of the wreckage, acrid and sharp, and all of a sudden everything feels so much more  _ real _ . His hand shakes as he reaches the door pad and punches in the code, praying that the door is still functional enough to let him through.

It  _ does _ open-- in a sense. Jamming about halfway through isn’t ideal, and does make getting across a bit of a squeeze, but the lightened gravity helps with the angle as Martin forces himself through.

“Ow,” he says, because if he has an omniauscult Voice on the other line, he should be able to complain to it. “Made it.”

_ Great, _ says the Voice, and Martin knows it’s all just text on a screen, but he  _ swears _ he can feel a bit of sarcasm with that one word.  _ What do you see? _

“Um… Not much, I’m not going to lie. Everything’s shattered, or vaporized on impact, or just plain  _ broken _ . It’s… horrible.”

_ To say the least. _

“Yeah. God, I hope the others made it. Michael…”

_ Focus… _

“You’re right, I know. It’s just…”

Martin sags against the door he’d just passed through. The exposed fingers on his right hand drum nervously against his thigh as he thinks about his crew. About Michael, the initiation ceremony. How beautiful this moon had looked from up there.

It’s a lot uglier up close, he thinks. Most things are.

_ Very deep. _

A surprised noise escapes him as he jolts upright, and his cheeks warm as he realizes he’d said that out loud.

“Didn’t mean for you to hear that,” he manages, glaring at the screen.

_ I can’t control what I hear. _

“Right. Guess I’ll either have to be careful, or figure out how to turn you off.”

_ If it helps, what happens on 50U64UU will stay on 50U64UU _ .

“I just hope that that doesn’t include me.”

_ Of course not. _

Martin stares at the screen for a second. That’s the biggest vote of confidence he’s gotten from the Voice so far. In fact, on that note…

“Actually, I just realized-- It’s a bit rude of me to not know the name of my saviour-to-be. Um, who are you?”

There’s a brief delay that once again sends Martin into a slight panic, but is soon revealed to be just because the Voice must have been typing and/or talking for a bit longer than usual.

_ My name is Jonathan Sims. I go by Jon. 29, he/him. I work as a freelancer-- my current job is with the Magnus Institute, London. I received your message while at work. I’m still there. _

Martin holds back a laugh.

“I didn’t mean a  _ dating profile _ .”

That delay again.

_ Well, I hope that was informational enough, because we need to focus on  _ you _ right now. _

“Yeah, okay, fair enough. I’m in this corridor-meeting-place bit, except I can’t tell you exactly which one this used to be because of, you know, how much the crash  _ mangled _ it. I’m pretty sure at least one of these things leads to the kitchen, though? And definitely one to the bridge.”

_ Do you know which ones? _

“Hard no. Even if I had been an expert on the ins and outs of the ship, there's no way I'd be able to reconstruct it from… you can't see me, but I'm gesturing: all this.”

_ Right. Pick a direction, then? Or is there anything in the vicinity that might serve to be an identifier? _

“Um… Give me a second, and I'll check.”

An immediate sweep of the area reveals nothing but crumpled grey metal, and the observation that some of the corridors seem sharper than the others. (Martin winces as he considers moving his definitely-not-the-smallest frame inside the one to his front and left in particular, and hopes Jon won't make him take it.)

A second, closer look, however, draws his attention to something small and blinking in the bottom corner of the rightmost tunnel.

“I think I’ve got something,” he says, slowly stepping his way towards it. The air on this side of what he’s decided to call the “common room” is colder, and as he bends down to examine the light, a cool breeze wafts against his forehead, waving the soft curls there and dislodging the slick ones plastered to his skin.

_ What? _

“I’m pretty sure the right hand corridor takes me to the bridge.”

_ Are you sure? _

“Yeah. There’s a vent over here that I should be able to follow all the way back to the central cooling systems, and those are located directly under the bridge. Everything spiders out from there, so…”

_ Alright. Good work. Any ideas about the other tunnels? _

“There are four of them.”

_ Anything  _ _ useful _ _ ? _

“Well, the galley’s located pretty centrally, and I came from the eastern airlock, so… one of the two forward-facing corridors, I’d say. Which leaves the left as still completely unknown, besides the fact that it probably goes towards the back of the ship.”

_ I suppose that’s better than nothing. _

“I think so. Any idea which tunnel I ought to take?”

_ I’d say wherever you expect to find the rest of your crew. _

Martin straightens out of his crouch, biting his lip. The rest of his crew… He hadn’t even thought of it that way, had assumed Jon would direct him towards more food, or working ship controls. But of course. His crew.

He’s pretty sure the pit in his stomach isn’t forming at the thought of finding them  _ alive _ . 

The sun he injects into his voice when he next speaks is so forced he’s afraid Jon will be able to hear it through the text:

“That would probably be the sleeping quarters. The ship crashed during what we decided was “night,” so, yeah. The only problem is, I have no idea which path would get me there.”

_ So, to be clear, our options are: Probably-the-bridge, Potentially-the-kitchen-1, Potentially-the-kitchen-2, Destination:Unknown, and “pick a random direction to try and find the sleeping quarters.” _

“Yeah.”

_ Hm. _

* * *

Any idea which tunnel I ought to take?  
I’d say wherever you expect to find the rest of your crew  
That would probably be the sleeping quarters. The ship crashed during what we decided was “night,” so, yeah. The only problem is, I have no idea which path would get me there.  
So, to be clear, our options are: Probably-the-bridge, Potentially-the-kitchen-1, Potentially-the-kitchen-2, Destination:Unknown, and “pick a random direction to try and find the sleeping quarters.”   
Yeah.  
Hm  


* * *

**New Action Item:** Choose a corridor.

**Notification:** You have ONE new message from: TIMOTHY STOKER. Reads as follows:

“Hey, boss. Another potential victim came in and gave a statement; I’m passing it down to you along with my report for your archiving, or whatever else it is you do besides your main job. Let me know if you need any followup, or any more info from me.

Peace,  
Tim”

**New Action Item:** View statement?

**Your current assistants are:** Sasha James, Timothy Stoker

Time is of the essence, Jonathan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to leave a comment making your choice! from now on, anything designated an "action item" in the end reports will involve a choice to be made. in this case, there are two action items and therefore two choices to be made: 
> 
> 1\. which corridor should martin explore first?
> 
> and
> 
> 2\. should jon read the statement and report tim sent him, or should he ignore it and focus exclusively on martin? if jon reads the statement, the next chapter will be said statement and report; if not, we keep on going with martin!


	3. Chapter 3

**Task Item:** Send Martin towards the bridge. Save the statement.

* * *

So, to be clear, our options are: Probably-the-bridge, Potentially-the-kitchen-1, Potentially-the-kitchen-2, Destination:Unknown, and “pick a random direction to try and find the sleeping quarters.”   
Yeah  
Hm  
  
Head towards the bridge.

* * *

Martin eyes the right-hand tunnel, immediately less sure about the decision now that, you know, he  _ actually has to go down it _ . The gentle draft from the vent feels a lot more menacing against the back of his knuckles as he takes a step towards the threshold. He looks up, eyes the warped metal, swallows.

“You’re sure about this?”

_ I can’t be sure of anything. But if you’re right about this leading to the bridge, then that might be your best chance at gathering your fellow crewmates and getting off this rock. _

“I guess.”

_ If it’s any consolation, I have a feeling your instincts are correct. _

“Oh, yeah, I love trusting my life to a little bit of instinct he said-she said.”

_ It’s all I’ve got. I  _ am _ known for my foresight. _

“Are you?” Martin wonders, for the briefest of moments, whether Jon is in the business of fortune-telling.

_ ...Never mind. Just my attempt at a joke. _

Martin scowls down at the screen.

“Well, it’s not a very good one,” he says, squaring his shoulders in preparation for entering the tunnel. His toes feel a little colder than they had before. He kind of wishes Jon would stop talking, if only so he can convince himself that this is real; this is happening,  _ right now _ .

_ My apologies; I wasn’t expecting to have to practice my stand-up comedy routine when I signed on for this. _

Martin’s glare intensifies.

“You know what? I’m going to turn you off, for now. Gotta save power and stuff.” Before Jon can protest, he dashes off a quick “Call you if I need anything,” and hits the power switch on the back of the screen, shoving the thing deep into one of the lower pockets in his EVA suit.

There.

With Jon gone, his breath sounds too loud in his ears, even with his helmet tucked under his arm. Though he’d only been reading text, he’d been injecting the remnants of Jon’s voice into his words whenever he read them, and the weight on his left leg feels too much like a reminder that he might have just cut off the one actual lifeline he’d had. Logically, of course, he knows that what he’s just done is no more cutting off their connection than locking a phone during a call is, but… the tension remains, thick enough in the air that it threatens to choke and drown him. 

He takes one deep inhale and exhale to show it who’s boss-- and takes another step towards the mouth of the tunnel. Then another. And another. The alternating rhythm of his boots against the torn up ground is comfortable, if not relaxing, after a while, and there’s enough distraction in picking his way across the torn-up floor to keep him from relaxing too entirely.

The tunnel itself is drier than he’d expected-- he’d been braced for something humid, almost damp, though the more he thinks about it, he realizes with a flush, that really wouldn’t have made any sense at all, now would it?

Not for the first time, he wishes he hadn’t gotten separated from Michael. At the very least, his presence would have been a calming influence, unlike (he takes a moment to glare down at the bulge in his pocket) Jon, and they might even have turned the endeavour into something with a bit of fun. Michael would have laughed with him about his humidity assumption, might even have mimed opening an umbrella to ward off any unwanted precipitation. And of course, Michael being with him would have been a definite source of confirmation that he isn’t alone on this godforsaken moon.

He leans one hand against the right hand side wall, letting the tips of his ruined glove drag parallel to the vent. The metal is slightly warm through the glove material, and Martin has the briefest of temptations to press his cheek to it, to let it fill him with its heat. He imagines fusing to the wall, becoming one with it, becoming a part of something greater and far more terrible than himself, feels the ghost of the immense sense of  _ belonging _ he just  _ knows _ would accompany it. It feels like he’s floating, as his feet carry him down the corridor, increasingly unaware and uncaring about the state of the ground.

Until, of course, he trips.

Lands face-first into the gritty, grated metal, in fact, and he intends to curse Jonathan Sims to hell and back for suggesting he remove his helmet, when in fact he remembers Jon at all. He whirls around, left hand immediately going to his pocket, drawing out the screen. It’s not broken, thank heavens; isn’t even cracked; and when he frantically goes to turn it on, it lights right up on cue.

He doesn’t even have to wait a full minute before a new message comes across:

_ Made it? _

A wave of relief-cum-guilt washes over him as he considers the hypocritical implications of just how attached he’s beginning to become to this device and Jon. His thumb rubs slowly across the screen in a comforting motion, and he only catches himself doing it when Jon sends across another message asking him exactly what that string of gibberish is supposed to mean.

He tries not to feel another stab of guilt at how he’d just cut Jon off. The man is helping save his life, for god’s sake.

“No,” he says aloud, the words echoing strangely inside the tunnel. “Just-- wanted to make sure you hadn’t abandoned me after all that.”

_ Don’t be ridiculous _ .

Ah yes. That’s why he’d turned him off. Still, he supposes the man is justified, this time.

“Hey, I know people who’ve done similar for less.”

There’s a short pause before the response comes. When it does, it’s not anything warm and fuzzy enough to set off fireworks within Martin’s chest:

_They must have had no concept of efficiency and resource management, then._ _Besides, what sort of person leaves an astronaut to die simply because they were a little snippy?_

Still, Martin thinks. It’s nice to be wanted.

“Yeah,” both he and the tunnel echo. “What sort of person would do something like that?”

* * *

It’s a bit longer before he emerges from the other side of the tunnel-- he’d turned Jon off again for most of it, after a mutual agreement that Jon had better things to do than listen to pure silence but for the sound of exerted breathing, and Martin could probably use the lack of distractions. Occasionally, when passing a strange door or box or  _ thing, _ all beginning to be illuminated by the weak glow of emergency lighting the farther he moved, he’d pull out the screen and ask Jon’s opinion on what to do, if anything. Most of the time, his advice just amounted to “Keep moving,” but occasionally he’d suggest taking a peek into the room, or grabbing an emergency fire hydrant, “just in case.”

Whether or not it was actually keeping him safer, Jon’s measured caution definitely helped settle his nerves, and the resulting trek certainly felt much shorter than it probably had been.

It had gone so smoothly, in fact, that he’d half been expecting the tunnel to be collapsed on the other end, or to be blocked off with a password he doesn’t know, or to lead to a crushed set of bathrooms, or something, but no; he makes it out the other end unscathed, and perfectly situated in what, he reports to Jon in a babble of words both excited and exhausted, is definitely the bridge.

So he’ll chalk this up as a win for them.

_ Good work, _ says Jon, slightly less enthusiastic, but hey, Martin will take it.

On first glance, nothing seems explicitly  _ wrong. _ The bridge is quiet, its walls arching high enough over Martin’s head to give him a dizzying feeling if he tilts his head far back enough. Two grand, sweeping windows serve as the showstopper pieces of the observation wall; they’ve both somehow survived the crash, though the rightmost pane shows signs of major stress with a few small cracks threatening rapid and sudden expansion. There’s another fire extinguisher bolted at the base of one of the thin, dark pieces of wall near the front of the room, and various chairs and everyday items surround it haphazardly-- they’ve clearly been thrown by the crash. 

It’s eerie, sure, but it’s the same bridge Martin’s known for the past month, with all instruments in their regular place, if not in proper working order. It’s not like he’d expected things to go  _ that _ well, anyways-- the mangled common room is evidence enough of that-- and he’s just opened his mouth to say as much to Jon when it hits him: the utter  _ silence _ .

There’s not a single other soul in the bridge, and while there had been a not-small part of him that had been expecting this outcome, it still hits like a blow to the face. Even the regular thrum of the engines is absent, another thing he ought to have noticed before now, but hadn’t. 

That cold shiver runs through him again, and he extends a hand to brace himself against the edge of the nearest desk.

_ Martin? _

Right. Jon. 

He doesn’t think he can explain this to him. Where would he even begin? In his periphery, he thinks he can see a flicker of Captain Robinson standing and looking out at the observation window, her traditionally severe expression softened slightly against the expanse spread out before her. He blinks. She’s gone.

_ Martin, are you there? _

“Yeah,” he manages. “Here. I’m-- fine.”

_ ...You don’t sound  _ fine.

Martin heaves a sigh. It’s-- frustrated, more than it’s tired. He does  _ not _ want to get into this, not now, not  _ ever _ . How could he convey the overwhelming feeling of loneliness currently crushing him inside an oversized tin can? How can he make Jon understand just how tempting it is to let it squeeze him until he cracks?

“It’s-- I couldn’t explain it.”

_ You could try? _

He could. He could do that much.

“No.”

_ Alright. Then I suggest we move to the next order of business.  _

The immediacy with which Jon breezes over to the next topic shouldn’t hurt, but it does. It makes sense-- offer a distraction so the poor lonely astronaut can take his mind off of how poor and lonely he is-- but there’s a secret part of Martin that wishes Jon had pushed just a little bit farther. Maybe he  _ does _ want to talk about it, or at least try.

But Jon’s moved on, and Jon’s not his mother, and Jon deserves to get this over with as soon as possible so he can get back to his day job, so Martin leans a little farther onto his hands to test the limits of his wrists and pushes back up with enough force to get himself bounding to his feet.

“Right. What do you think?”

_ Anything useful in the bridge? _

“Well, controls are all gone, and it seems empty except for me, and I’ve already got a fire extinguisher, so… no.”

_ Are you sure? Nothing that could be used as supplies, or food? _

Martin does another once-over of the room, just to make sure he hasn’t missed anything in his moping.

“Not unless I’ve developed a predisposition towards metal in the last few hours, no.”

_ Can’t hurt to try. _

“ Jon .”

_ Right. Right. Sorry. What about electronics? Anything you can repurpose? _

“I’m not an  _ engineer _ . I can do basic stuff, like connecting that control panel to this conversation, but nothing that could actually help me get off this moon or keep me alive.”

_ You never know. _

“I wouldn’t count on it, Jon.”

Jon’s end pauses, and Martin fervently hopes he’s thinking of a way to save an astronaut with absolutely no useful skills, because--

_ If you don’t mind my asking, what  _ _ is _ _ your area of expertise? _

“Um.”  _ Shit. _ “I… write poetry?”

_ And I’m sure it’s wonderful, _

(Somehow Martin doubts this.)

_ but I  _ _ am _ _ asking in terms of  _ _ relevant _ _ experience, unless you have a master plan to write yourself a propulsion unit you have yet to inform me about? _

“Ha. Ha.”

Jon doesn’t deign to respond except for a couple of question marks that seem to burn right into Martin’s soul:

_ ?? _

“Um, well, like I said, I… don’t think I really have anything that could be of use.”

_ List them anyways. _

“I don’t know, I-- I can cook? And I’ve learned a bit about space systems physics in the last four weeks, and--”

_ The last  _ _ four weeks _ _ ? What were you here to study, again? _

If it wasn’t so cold on the bridge, Martin would be sweating. As it is-- he’s come this far; would Jon abandon him here for being a liar? If he gave Jon some spur-of-the-moment information, would Jon look it up and send his card tower of precariously balanced untruths and half-truths tumbling? Would he even care? He thinks he could take it if Jon never speaks to him again, as long as he doesn’t hit play on that particular clock until he’s back home on Earth.

“Art,” he blurts out before he can properly think it through.

_ Come again? _

“I’m-- I was a guest artist and critic invited onboard to, uh, write about the stars. And the moon. And space in general.”

_ Huh. _

Jon doesn’t  _ seem _ suspicious, but then again, Martin can never really tell these things, anymore.

“Michael-- one of my crewmates-- invited me up, actually, right before, you know, the crash and all. It was-- a very inspiring experience.”

This, at least, is true. He really  _ had _ had thoughts of writing something about the way the moon’s light had reflected off the ship and through Michael’s helmet into his hair, how it had illuminated his cheek and the kindness hidden beneath his skin.

_ I don’t suppose you’d share any of your poetry. To read when you’re off exploring, and all. _

“We’ll see,” Martin says, because it’s a safe answer, and because his heart rate is beginning to come down again.

And that seems the end of it, at least until Jon catches on to something Martin had let slip in that last sentence, something he’d kind of ignored in its relevance.

_ Hold on. You said Michael “invited you up--” did you mean-- _

“Outside the ship, yeah.”

_ Well, then. You do have a single serviceable skill.  _

“Which is?”

_ You have EVA experience. _

From the way it’s phrased, Jon clearly had intended this to be a revelation of grand proportions. Martin squints closer at the screen, confused whether there’s something he’s missed.

“But…? I’m already on the moon? And we know the air’s safe, right? So I don’t see why I’d need to…?”

_ All true facts, but even the most basic EVA involves tethering and climbing. I can think of any number of ways that could come in handy, can’t you? _

Martin flushes with embarrassment, and is once again thankful that Jon can’t see his face-- he should have thought of that. If Jon didn’t already think him a fool, he certainly must do so now.

“R-Right. Of course.”

_ If you’re sure the bridge has nothing else useful, perhaps we ought to move on. _

A notification to Martin’s wrist makes him squint as Jon continues typing.

“Hold on, Jon. It’s getting late-- I think I ought to focus on finding, you know, things to survive. Food, and a place to sleep, and whatnot.”

_ Can you set up camp in the bridge? It seems safe enough from what you say, and the intact windows ought to shield you from the worst of whatever the moon has to offer. _

“Did you have to say it like that?”

_ As in? _

“Did you  _ have _ to make it sound like there are, I don’t know, spooky moon aliens crawling around just waiting for the right time to strike?”

Martin wraps his arms tightly around himself, as if his forearms are about to be any match for whatever kind of creature lives on desolate moons in the middle of nowhere-space.

_ What a terrible thought. _

“I know, which is why--”

_ ‘Spooky’ is such an unacademic term. Please, Martin, there are many other useful and more precise terms for the matter. _

Martin frowns.

“Spooky moon aliens, Jon. That’s what’s coming after me if you don’t get me off this thing. And then they’ll turn right around and come for you.”

_ I don’t think that’s how it works. _

“Spooky. Moon. Aliens.”

_ I want you to know that I am physically sighing right now. You, Martin Blackwood, are making me, millions upon millions of miles away, sigh at my desk. _

“Good.”

_ Now, how hungry are you? _

* * *

I want you to know that I am physically sighing right now. You, Martin Blackwood, are making me, millions upon millions of miles away, sigh at my desk.  
Good.  
Now, how hungry are you?   


\--

**New Action Item:** Decide whether to send Martin after food or after securing a safe and warm sleeping situation.

**Notification:**

You have ONE unsent draft to: SASHA JAMES, TIMOTHY STOKER. Reads as follows:

“Sasha, Tim. I have a research request to make: I need a thorough background check on one MARTIN BLACKWOOD, as listed on the log for the spaceship Varia.

\- Jon”

You have NO new messages.

You have ONE opened message from: TIMOTHY STOKER. 

**New Action Item:** Send message?

**Action Item:** View statement?

**Your current assistants are:** Sasha James, Timothy Stoker

Time is of the essence, Jonathan.


	4. Chapter 4

**Task Items:** Send Martin after a place to sleep. Save the statement.

Message to SASHA JAMES and TIMOTHY STOKER sent.

* * *

I want you to know that I am physically sighing right now. You, Martin Blackwood, are making me, millions upon millions of miles away, sigh at my desk.  
Good.  
Now, how hungry are you?   
Uh, I can hold out if you need me to  
I think that would be best. Better to establish a ‘home base’ of sorts and get some rest, though food will be a priority in the morning.  


* * *

_ Did we ever settle on the issue of whether you can sleep in the bridge? _

“There’s a really large crack running down the bay windows, so I’m going to go with… no, let’s not make me sleep here.”

Martin slides his hand along the strip of intact wall sitting kitty-corner to the windows, mind split between processing the almost  _ wrong _ smoothness of its surface and trying to listen to Jon.

_ Technically, the atmospheric composition, combined with the fact that you haven’t died yet, should mean you’d be fine even if air got through. _

“Do I need to mention the potential  _ spooky  _ aliens again?”

_ Do I need to remind you that aliens aren’t real, and certainly wouldn’t have gone unnoticed in this part of the galaxy? _

“Jon. I’m not staying here.”

_ Alright, fine. It’s probably best you don’t sleep in the way of potentially splintering glass anyways. Where to? _

Martin frowns.

“I was hoping you’d be able to help with that.”

_ What are your options, in terms of proceeding from this room? _

Martin bites his lip, glances around the room. Besides the door he’d entered by, there’s another mirrored on the side of the room nearest the cracked windows. The threshold is a bit crumpled, making for a tight squeeze of an opening, and is surrounded by debris and dust, but it’s definitely traversable. 

He relays this to Jon, who takes a moment to think; he hopes he’ll be on the same page as him, and say that going back the way he came is a waste of time at best. Returning to the site where he woke up holds exactly zero temptation, and he doesn’t like what he remembers of the look of the other tunnels. At least the bridge is familiar.

He’s not sure about what Jon’ll decide, though. Beyond the basic guidance he’s been helping with, Jon seems like the kind of person who’d want to explore every single option and path, which… isn’t ideal, for Martin. On the other hand, a little exploration might be just what Martin needs to get Jon off of his back-- he’s already come dangerously close to exposing himself once, and he can’t afford to get caught, not like this. It’s one thing if he were on Earth, where he could disappear, or get assistance elsewhere, in due time. Here, there’s no guarantee of  _ anything _ . Jon might turn him in, deciding a reward is fair price for saving his life. Or he might abandon him entirely, if his morals happen to skew that way.

No, keeping the lie alive is the only way to guarantee his  _ own _ livelihood.

The screen in his hand lights up.

_ Take the new door, _ say Jon’s words.  _ Might as well surge ahead; you might even find a crewmember to help. _

With the wave of relief that washes over Martin comes curiosity on Jon’s meaning. A crewmember to help-- does Jon expect there’ll be others to save? Or does he mean someone else who can help  _ him? _ The question feels curiously selfish, and he rather likes the opinion of himself he’s built for Jon so far, so he keeps it to himself.

“Okay,” he says instead. “The doorway’s kind of dusty, though. I’m going to put you away for now-- we really should rig up something more convenient for the future, though.”

_ Sounds like a plan. _

Martin slips the screen into his pocket, careful not to hit the button that would disconnect the call-- his bones freeze for a second, considering the possibility-- and sets about clambering over the jagged metal surrounding and blockading the doorway.

It’s surprisingly grueling work; he finds himself out of breath after the first couple of climbs, and the dust begins to whip up around him as he disturbs him, sending him on impromptu hacking sprees.

He decides it’s a good time to put his helmet back on.

Somehow, he manages to make it through the minefield without cutting himself or any more of his clothes open, or setting off the fire extinguisher, which turns out to be particularly valuable since, as he moves to squeeze out through the last few pieces of distorted metal, a particularly warped piece of grating catches on his leg. He tugs lightly at it with his foot, hoping to dislodge it without having to try and bend down and unhook his suit, and shifts his weight as he does, leaning farther back onto his back leg, shuffling it backwards to balance himself out.

This last step is a mistake. His heel makes contact with another extended beam, and just as he gets himself unsnagged, he trips over it with a surprise that catches his breath in his throat. His shoulders tense, but before he can spin around and process the situation, the beam shifts ever so slightly, and in the flash of an eye, the entire situation behind him collapses, a terribly beautiful chain reaction that effectively seals off Martin’s access to the bridge for the foreseeable future.

Great.

He jogs a ways down the hall he’s in, just to make sure nothing else is about to fall on him, then unlatches his helmet, sucking in great, large, deep breaths of what passes for fresh air. When he reaches into his pocket to pull his screen out, he notes his hands are shaking, small trembles that betray his still-pumping adrenaline.

He hopes the fear doesn’t inject itself into his voice as he says, “Made it.”

Jon responds immediately.

_ Great. _

Martin winces.

“But... there’s a problem.”

_ Tell me while you walk. I just ran some numbers-- there’s not much time before the temperature drops. _

Martin gulps.

“To how cold?”

_ Enough. _

This is a sufficiently ominous answer that Martin decides he doesn’t want to know. 

He starts walking, narrating the series of events to Jon, feet clanging obnoxiously against the grated flooring in a way that’s setting him on edge. God, he hopes this’ll all be over soon. And not in a one-way-or-another way-- he needs to get home, for his mother’s sake, if not his own. He’ll pick through all the Earthen-bound job listings; even if they pay quite a bit less, he’s not sure he’ll be ready to go back out into space, at least not quite so soon. In a couple of years, well… he’ll see.

“So,” he says, to take his mind off of… all that. “This is a long hall with no doors. Very boring. Let’s talk in the meantime so I don’t start imagining glowing rats?”

_ Where do you get these ridiculous notions? _

“I read a lot of sci-fi.”

_ That explains a lot, surprisingly. _

“What, do we have to have the ‘what counts as literature’ debate?”

_ No, no.  _

Martin coughs out a laugh.

“Then what, exactly, is the problem?”

_ I never mentioned a problem. _

“Oh, but it was implied in the tone of your voice.”

_ I thought you were reading my words off of a screen. _

“Point still stands.”

_ I refuse to elaborate. This is hardly going to end well, and I’d prefer to continue to enjoy talking to the man whose life I’m saving. _

Martin pushes down the small (and surprising!) flutter of warmth that accompanies Jon’s declaration, and turns the conversation back on him:

“Fine; then let’s talk about you. Who  _ are _ you? And yeah, I remember, you work at the Magnus something or other, but-- you mentioned freelancing? What do you  _ do, _ exactly?”

There’s a fairly long silence on the other end of the line. It draws out just long enough for Martin to start to become nervous that maybe Jon isn’t typing out a long paragraph again, that maybe he’s just up and left-- but then his response comes through, just one word, stark green against the black of the pad.

_ Archives. _

Martin wets his lips, unsure how to respond.

“Er-- so, like, organizing and categorizing, and such? Librarian stuff, yelling at people not to disturb the old files?”

_ You could say that. _

For some reason, Martin can’t picture Jon doing anything of the sort-- which isn’t fair, he reflects. He has no idea what the man looks or sounds like, and only the barest idea of what his personality’s like. For all he knows, Jon enjoys being stuffed into a basement to yell at university students attempting research.

“Come across anything cool?” he tries.

_ Maybe, _ comes the response, and then, before Martin can tell him off for being intentionally mysterious, he follows it with,  _ Confidentiality clause keeps me from really saying much more. _

“ _ Confidentiality clause?  _ What, are you archiving for some sort of government agency or something?”

_ Not exactly. _

Martin sighs. It doesn’t look like he’s going to learn much more about Jon’s job this way, for whatever reason, as if he’s going to be able to give away precious secrets on some undeveloped moon billions of miles away from Earth and millions from the nearest form of human civilization.

“Alright then, Mr Mystery, then what about yourself?”

_ Me? _

“Come on, surely you’ve managed to archive yourself a favorite color or song sometime over the years.” 

Jon is saved from answering by Martin’s feet choosing that moment to literally stumble across something on the floor. He wheels his arms around, trying to keep from smacking face first into the grating, letting out a cry of alarm in the process.

_ Martin?! _

He ends up jamming his arms between himself and the ground, so that his fall is less broken-face painful and more just plain embarrassing. He mutters out an “I’m fine,” to Jon, and brings his hands in towards his chest to push himself off of the ground, when he notices it. He freezes.

“Jon,” he whispers, a note of urgency making its way into his voice, “Jon, are you there?”

_ Always. Are you alright? _

“Jon, I think I’ve found something.”

* * *

Something, it turns out, is a loose bolt lying precariously on the grating, balanced between two hexagonal holes. Under other circumstances, it wouldn’t mean anything-- in fact, if there’d been even the slightest sign of destruction in the hall, Martin wouldn’t have thought anything of it at all, but the way it’s just lying there…

He voices his concerns to Jon, who thankfully doesn’t ridicule him for the paranoia. If anything, he seems like he agrees; his messages take longer between arriving, as if he’s considering the situation carefully before sending each one.

_ Is there anything in the vicinity to suggest where it came from? _

_ Was this sort of aberration commonplace before the crash? _

_ Are there any other bolts in the surrounding area? _

The answer to all of them is, inevitably, no. Martin feels the hair on the back of his neck prick up, even though the vents on this side of the ship are completely dead-- there’s no climate control, and it’s not cold enough to justify the goosebumps running up and down his arms.

“There’s a bend coming up in a few hundred feet,” he whispers, feeling foolish even as he does so. If someone really is about, they’d most definitely have already heard him coming down the corridor a hundred times over.

_ Go slowly. One hand on the extinguisher if it puts you at ease, though I’d rather you not waste it now if you don’t have to.  _

“And then what?”

_ Just move carefully, but don’t forget, the odds are that it’s much more likely to be friend than foe-- unless, of course, you antagonized all your crew members before the crash? _

“No,” says Martin, feeling even more foolish. “Of course not.”

_ I understand you’re worried that someone might have tampered with the ship-- _ honestly, that hadn’t been Martin’s line of thinking at all; he’d still been fixated on potential aliens, but now that Jon’s said it--  _ but at this point, cooperation will likely serve you much better than provoking a fight. _

“Okay,” says Martin, too nervous to say anything else. His fingers begin to sweat, turn clammy and slippery at his sides, and he fumbles more than he normally would getting them wrapped around the fire extinguisher’s nozzle. It’s heavy, at least, he tries to reassure himself. The knocking-out potential is there, if he needs it.

On a sudden impulse, he reaches out and grabs the bolt, rolls it around in his ungloved palm. By all accounts, it’s a normal bolt, slightly worn and hexagonal on one end. It’s beginning to develop some chemical color, sure-- but that’s true of the whole ship. He opens his palm flat, stares at the part as if he’s interrogating the thing.

It’s just a piece of metal, Martin, he thinks, trying his best to make it sound convincing. 

In the end, the bolt ends up tucked securely into one of his many pockets, the tiny added weight oddly securing. 

After that, it’s just a matter of edging down the hallway. The clang of his boots on the grating seem so much more violent all of a sudden, and he’s gripped with the sudden certainty that whatever’s around the corner already knows he’s coming, and doesn’t care.

_ Steady. _

Martin blows out through puffed cheeks. Jon’s right. He adjusts his hold on the fire extinguisher with an increased determination.

“Right. Let’s do this.”

His steps begin to pick up speed, until he’s full-out running, thundering down the hallway full-throttle, with no cares as to anyone-- or any _ thing _ \-- that might hear him coming. 

He rounds the corner without slowing and-- stops. The creeping dread from earlier seeps back into his chest, the spark of bravery that had flared up just a minute ago fizzling out immediately.

“Oh,” he says, voice small.

_ What is it? _

“I-- I think I need to sit down.”

_ What  _ _ is it _ _ ? _

“There-- There’s so much--”

_ So much  _ _ what?!? _

“Blood. It’s blood, Jon.”

There is a very long pause in which Martin feels like his heart is going to physically eject itself from his chest; the contents of his last meal sure are trying to do the same from his stomach. He avoids looking up, looking around, doesn’t want to take in more than he already has. His screen blinks on again:

_ Are you sure it’s not a tomato product? Or an experiment gone wrong? _

Irritation blooms on Martin’s face, slotting itself nicely beside the fear.

“I’m  positive . I can  _ smell _ it.”

The pause that ensues had better be Jon’s way of a wince, he thinks, more than a little murderously.

_ You should follow it, _ is what Jon says next, and Martin’s anger only grows.

“Are you  _ insane? _ ” and yes, he’s practically shouting now, but what does it matter if he’s about to be next to whatever caused  _ this _ . His fingers flutter against the bolt in his hip pocket, thumb over its shape in a last-ditch attempt to calm himself down.

_ I’m not going to dignify that with a response, _ Jon says, followed by,  _ One of your crew might be injured. If they’re the one that tampered with the ship, they’re hardly going to be in a state to hurt you. _

“And if they’re not?”

_ Why on earth would anybody want to kill you?  _

Martin bites his lip. Is his own paranoia worth potentially letting someone else-- one of his  _ crew _ \-- bleed out to death on a moon in the middle of nowhere? At his side, his hand curls into a fist with the answer. No. He can’t just leave someone, not here, not now, not just because he’s  _ scared _ .

“You’re right,” he says eventually. Keeping his hand on the fire extinguisher, he begins to follow the trail, down a short length of hallway and around another corner into--

The generator room.

He lets out a low whistle. A generator, if he and Jon can get it working, means warmth, means he won’t freeze through the night. He’s just about to tell Jon when he hears it-- a low moaning, then a stifled grunt-- the sounds of someone in pain.

His ears prick, and he slowly turns to face the direction of the noises. Waits.

The moan comes again. His heartrate skyrockets for the third time in an hour-- if he ever gets out of this, he’ll need a long doctor’s visit and several years of therapy-- but he begins to move towards the sound nevertheless, spurring himself on with the thought that he might be able to help whoever it is.

For some reason, the person he sees when he rounds a precariously balanced stack of engineering equipment is the last person he’d have ever expected to see injured.

It’s Captain Robinson.

He kneels immediately, frantically racking his brains for something to do. They’d all joked about how the only thing that could get her was Death himself, he remembers, and how even then, she might send him away with a rebuke to come back with a warrant. Like this, laid on the ground, curled into a position that looks less than comfortable, torso twisted, face drawn, eyes closed and breathing rattled, she looks… far too human for comfort.

It takes a moment for Martin’s brain to unscramble, in which time he’s checked her breathing twice, and pulse (weak) three times, to a conclusion of “she’s alive, but just barely,” which he relates to Jon once he’s gotten over the shock.

“There  _ has _ to be something we can do,” he pleads, but the ensuing pause on Jon’s end tells him that whatever there is, it isn’t much.

_ I found a map of your ship, _ he says eventually.

“And?” 

_ There should be cryogenic pods on the other side of this room. If you could get her into one… _

Right. He could keep her in stasis until he’s figured how to get himself off the moon, and then take her with him. Except, of course, that that means he’ll have to account for more weight, not to mention the amount of power he’ll have to divert to keep the pod running. There probably wouldn’t be time to get the generator running for overnight.

And, of course, he’ll have to climb over the enormous inadvertent barricade of equipment and broken machinery in order to get to the pods at all, never mind having to haul one all the way back here.

_ This is where your EVA experience might come in handy, _ Jon reminds him.

True. But Martin’s just remembered something else of vital importance, which is that the generator room sits nearly kitty-corner to the medbay. If he can get the generator working and patch Captain Robinson up enough to make sure she’ll survive the night, then he can both not freeze to death and have a greater chance of getting her back on her own feet. 

“Captain Robinson’s a force to be reckoned with,” he says in his explanation to Jon. “If anyone could figure a way off of this rock, it’s her.”

_ That’s a lot of  _ ifs _ , though,  _ Jon points out.  _ If _ _ you can get the generator working.  _ _ If _ _ you manage to patch her up.  _ _ If _ _ she survives the night.  _ _ If _ _ you can find the medbay when you wake up,  _ _ if _ _ it hasn’t been barricaded up by the crash. _

He’s right. But on the other hand--

“We don’t know that I’ll be able to get the pod at all, either. And if I can’t get the generator working, then I’m dead anyways, which means no one will be coming to save her, either.”

He rubs at his forehead. He’s pretty sure that, back on Earth, Jon’s doing the same thing. What a pair they make.

* * *

That’s a lot of ifs, though. _If_ you can get the generator working. _If_ you manage to patch her up. _If_ she survives the night. _If_ you can find the medbay when you wake up, _if_ it hasn’t been barricaded up by the crash.  
We don’t know that I’ll be able to get the pod at all, either. And if I can’t get the generator working, then I’m dead anyways, which means no one will be coming to save her, either.  
Fair enough.  


* * *

**New Action Item:** Decide whether to try and secure a cryogenics pod for Captain Robinson, or to have Martin try to patch her and the generator up and take her to medbay in the morning.

**Notification:** You have ONE new message from SASHA JAMES. Reads as follows:

“Hi, Jon.  
I did some preliminary research into Martin Blackwoods across the universe-- I’ve included a short report on each, but there was one particularly interesting holder of the name that I think might be your guy. If you’re not looking for Martin K. Blackwood, let me know, and I’ll go back into looking at the others.

Let me know if there’s anything else you need,  
\- Sasha”

You have ONE opened message from: TIMOTHY STOKER. 

**Action Item:** View statement?

**Your current assistants are:** Sasha James, Timothy Stoker

Time is of the essence, Jonathan.

**Author's Note:**

> don't forget to leave a comment making jon's decision! this is a playable fic, but i'm not going to put a "i need x comments to continue limit" because that would be no fun. instead, if i don't get even one response within a week, i will flip a coin/roll a die/generate a random number, and proceed that way. i do hope people play though!


End file.
